by Ava Storm
“Ready?” Ford asked quietly when I walked up to him.
“Ready,” I murmured.
He took my hand loosely in his as we walked toward the elevator bank. My heart was beating fast with anticipation as we waited for the elevator to reach the lobby floor. I stole a glance up at him, realizing for the first time how much taller he was than me, even in my heels. He smiled faintly, like he knew I was looking. “You’re not changing your mind, are you?”
“No,” I countered. “Are you?”
“Not a chance.”
We stepped onto the elevator, fingers still loosely entwined. Ford hit the top button, the one with a P on it.
“The penthouse,” I guessed. “Who are you, Ford?”
He tightened his fingers around mine, pulled me around to face him. He lifted my chin and stared down at me. “Does it matter?”
“No,” I decided. “It doesn’t.”
He kissed me long and hard as the elevator flew upward, unimpeded by any stops along the way. I was as breathless as though we’d taken the stairs when the doors opened again. His mouth felt so good on mine. Hard and unfamiliar, hot and exciting.
We stepped out into a small lobby with only two doors off it. Ford took me to the one on the right and slid the keycard into the lock. I half expected it not to work. This room had to cost two-thousand dollars a night. But the door opened easily, and I followed him into the most beautiful hotel suite I’d ever seen. It was bigger than my entire house back in Branville, and the white leather furniture probably cost more. The far wall was entirely glass, and I could see the lights of the city laid out before us, stretching out as far as I could see.
I crossed the room and put my hands up against the glass. Ford was reflected behind me, a dark outline shot through with glowing lights. He put his hands on either side of mine and leaned in to kiss the back of my neck.
I gasped, curling my fingers into the glass, my nails scrabbling for something to hold onto as my knees went weak. My last thought as I twisted in his arms to kiss him back was that this was going to be a very good night.
Hours later, I woke with a start. I wasn’t disoriented—the strangely silent cocoon at the top of the city was nothing like Amanda and Shelly’s noisy, third-floor walk-up—but I was cursing myself for falling asleep in the lake of a bed Ford and I had torn apart. The sheets were twisted around me, the comforter was half on the floor. Cautiously, I peered at him in the dim light that filtered through the curtains. Sleep didn’t soften the hard lines of his face like the flashes of humor had earlier in the bar. He looked like the same stern statue I’d been hesitant to approach only hours ago.
Just hours ago. I stuffed my fist against my mouth to muffle a groan. I’d just had sex with a man I hadn’t known existed this time yesterday. Worse, I'd fallen asleep beside him. The only way to complete this hat trick of a fuck up would be to still be here when he woke. I tried to picture Ford making awkward small talk, suggesting that the two of us get together again sometime, maybe. Honestly, he was going to be really slammed with work for the next couple of weeks, but he’d call me.
Galvanized, I slid one leg off the edge of the bed and transferred my weight to it slowly so as to not disturb the topography of the mattress. Then I gathered up my clothes and crept back into the living room to get dressed. I held Shelly’s heels by the ankle straps in one hand while I tiptoed barefoot across the Italian marble lobby. I hesitated at the door, wondering if I should leave a note. I glanced back toward the bedroom. No, I decided, and slipped out into the hall.
My heart was in my throat the entire ride down, and it stayed there while I waited for the Uber. But once I’d slid in the back of the college student’s Ford Focus, I began to relax. A bubble of exhilaration expanded in my chest as I thought about the night. I’d done it. I’d had great sex with a hot stranger, and I hadn’t thought about the text messages once.
I was free.
I hugged myself. Why had I assumed that meaningless sex would leave me feeling lonely? Instead, I was seeing for the first time how great life could be without Alex. I would move to the city. We’d only gone back to Branville because Alex wanted to take over his family business. There was nothing there for me, not even my parents who had died in a car crash my sophomore year of college. I was stuck working as a teller at the bank, strategizing how to move over to mortgages. I wondered now why I had agreed. Alex had just made it sound so logical. His parents would give us their house in a few years, after they retired and downsized to live in town. Once we got the house, we’d start a family. I could quit the bank and stay home with the kids, or hey, maybe I could become a teacher. Hadn’t I gone to school for education?
“Public administration,” I’d corrected.
Why hadn’t I told him that they actually weren’t the same thing, and that I didn’t want to become a teacher, and that I really didn’t want to stay home with the kids?
As the car slid through the night, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders I hadn’t even realized was weighing me down. Sleeping with Ford had been the first decision I’d made just for myself in years, and it had felt good. Damn good.
4
Ford
I knew she was gone before I even opened my eyes the next morning. I was always acutely aware of other people, and my senses told me that I was alone in the bed. My dick wouldn’t have minded a good morning, but the rest of me was relieved. I wasn’t a morning person. I wasn’t particularly an afternoon person either. Early evening was when I started to feel like myself.
I swung out of bed and headed out to make a cup of coffee. I was stark naked when Griffin and Jameson looked up from the table.
“Good morning,” Griffin laughed. “Is it casual Friday?”
“Meeting in thirty minutes,” Jameson said, less amused. “You weren’t answering your phone.”
I made an abrupt about face and went back into the bedroom. So much for my fucking spidey senses, I thought as I pulled on my clothes. I hadn’t forgotten about the meeting, exactly. It was eight-thirty. I could’ve been to the office by nine if I’d hurried.
It was a good thing I’d never see Paige again. She could be bad for business.
I went back and joined the others at the table. Someone had poured me a cup of coffee, likely Griffin. Jameson would be too annoyed that he and Griffin had to come downtown, and I didn’t blame him. I’d be pissed too.
“Sorry,” I said. “Long night.”
Jameson just grunted.
Griffin grinned. “Is she still in there?”
“No.” I opened my laptop and pulled the printout of the agenda over. It was our standard Friday meeting with the international shareholders. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if I’d missed it, but I knew the others wanted to announce our partnership in London that Kai had just finalized. He’d emailed me the signed contract at three am Chicago time. Probably around the same time Paige was sneaking out.
“How was it?” Griffin asked as though we were still in college and not CEOs of a huge international company.
“It was fine,” I said evasively. “I doubt I’ll ever see her again.”
“You’ll definitely never see her again,” Jameson corrected. “Shelly told me she lives in some backwater town, only in the city for the weekend. You were just a tourist attraction. Like the African penguins or Wrigley Field. Now can we talk about something that actually matters, like the billion dollar deal we’re about to announce?”
With that, I put Paige out of my mind.
5
Paige
I’d moved to the week after my fling with Ford. At first, everything came together so easily it felt like fate. Shelly and Amanda’s third roommate was moving out, so I took half of the savings account I’d shared with Alex and spent nearly all of it on the first month’s rent and bedroom furniture. Then I got an entry level job as an Administrative Office Specialist that paid so much more than I made at the bank that I felt rich.
For a few weeks, I worried
about running into Ford. Then I spent a few weeks hoping to run into Ford. I knew it was a near impossibility in a city of 2.8 million, but it had happened once, hadn’t it?
“If you want to run into him,” Amanda said as we meandered up and down the aisles of Foodsmart, “why don’t we go back to the Cherington?”
“Because that looks like I’m trying to run into him,” I explained. “Do you see why that doesn’t work?”
“No, but I see how running into him anywhere else by chance isn’t going to work,” Amanda countered. She turned the cart down the next aisle.
I tossed in toilet paper and paper towels. “Do we need dishwashing liquid?”
“No,” Amanda said. She stopped the cart in front of the personal hygiene section and scanned the boxes of tampons. I watched her, feeling disoriented for a minute. Did I need tampons? I tried to picture the box beneath my sink. Was it full, or was I down to the last few? Why couldn’t I picture the box? I’d been in Chicago for five weeks now. Surely there should be a damn box. Frantically, I ran over the last few weekends in my mind.
“Amanda,” I said, my voice so strange that Amanda turned around to look at me. “I think I need a pregnancy test.”
Amanda’s eyebrows met her hairline before her training as a lawyer took over and her face became calmly neutral. “Okay,” she said as though I had told her we needed detergent. “We’ll grab one.”
We were very quiet for the rest of the trip. Amanda darted looks at me out of the corner of her eye, and more than once opened her mouth to say something, but she never did, and I was grateful. I didn’t want to talk right now. Didn’t want to think about what it might mean. Besides, talking would interrupt the soothing internal monologue that was assuring me that my cycle was just off kilter because of the shock of the cheating, because of the stress of the move, because of the excitement.
I couldn’t be pregnant.
But if I was?
Helplessly, I did the math. It would be Ford’s. Alex and I had been going through a dry spell for a little while before the breakup. He’d brought it up when I confronted him about the texts. He hadn’t felt like I’d wanted him. It felt good to be wanted. It hadn’t meant anything. Blah, blah, fucking blah.
But I couldn’t be.
I’d know, wouldn’t I? This kind of thing didn’t just sneak up on you. There was morning sickness and...and...leg cramps, right? All of a sudden you craved pickles with peanut butter, and you got winded crossing the street. I had felt fine jogging up the stairs to the third-floor apartment for the last month. I couldn’t be pregnant.
The little voice in my head went back and forth until the test results silenced it.
I read the results on the small stick, comparing them to the chart on the back of the box. No matter how many times I rechecked, it always said the same thing. I was having a baby.
Amanda sat on the bathroom floor with me. Shelly came home and found us like that. She crawled in the bathtub in order to fit too, and the three of us stared at the stick.
“You don’t have to—” Amanda ventured.
“I’m going to.” I blew out a hard breath. Something was filling my chest. Grief and shock, but also a tinge of joy. I’d always wanted to be a mother. Alex and I had even picked out names. I supposed I couldn’t use those anymore. “Our lease is up in six months, right? I’ll have to get my own apartment. Can I afford my own apartment?”
“I’ll help you find one that you can,” Amanda offered.
“You can stay here,” Shelly said. “How much room does a baby take up anyway?”
I shrugged. I had no idea. I didn’t know anything much about babies. I was an only child who’d never babysat.
“More than you’d think,” Amanda, who was the oldest of four, said. “But we’ll figure it out.”
Shelly drummed her nails on the side of the porcelain tub, her forehead creased. “I never thought I’d say this, Paige, but should you call Alex?”
For a minute, my overloaded brain couldn’t figure out why Shelly was suggesting it. Then I wasn’t sure how to say that no, I shouldn’t call Alex. There was no reason to call Alex.
Amanda read my face and said shrewdly, “Or Ford?”
“Oh, shit.” Shelly said. “Paige, if this is Ford’s baby, you don’t have anything to worry about. Amanda and I are going to come live with you in your Glencoe mansion.”
“He’s not moving her to the suburbs,” Amanda said, and then thoughtfully, “Maybe a nice condo in Vista Tower though.”
I stared at the two of them. Glencoe was the most expensive suburb of Chicago, and Vista Tower condos went for around ten million each. “What are you talking about?”
“She doesn’t know,” Shelly stage whispered.
Amanda put her hand on my arm. “Ford is rich, babe. Like, filthy, money-is-no-object rich.”
“Are you saying that just because he got the penthouse that night?” I asked. “I’m sure he’s got money, but…” I trailed off as Amanda and Shelly shook their heads.
“I’m saying that because he’s one of the co-founders of Blip, Inc.,” Shelly said, naming the social media company behind some of the most popular apps. She shifted to the side and pulled her phone out of her back pocket. A minute later, she held it out to me. “See?”
I took the phone and looked down to see Ford staring back. Griffin and Jameson were in the picture, too, along with a man I didn’t recognize. I clicked on the picture, and it took me to an article that had run in Forbes just a few months ago. I skimmed it quickly, but it didn’t have many details about Ford. It focused on the company they’d started at Stanford and took public when they were twenty-six, making them the youngest billionaires in the world at the time.
He had a last name now. I stared down at it. Ford Cavanaugh. Would my baby’s last name also be Cavanaugh? I couldn’t imagine it. I put his name into the search engine and began scrolling through the articles, looking for one that might give me more information about the man rather than the company. There weren’t many. I learned that he’d been born and raised in Chicago along with his brother Kai—the fourth man in the picture. They’d met Griffin and Jameson when they went to Stanford. They’d co-founded Blip Inc. Between the four of them, they owned 75% of the voting power in the company and 60% of the stock. They’d pledged twenty million shares of Class A common stock over the next two decades to a variety of non-profits.
I looked at Amanda. “What’s class A common stock?”
Amanda blinked. “How would I know?”
“You’re a lawyer.”
“I’m a law student focusing on entertainment law, not a finance lawyer.”
“I’ll look it up,” Shelly volunteered. She crawled out of the tub and across our tangled legs to get her iPad from the next room.
I looked back down. There were several articles that said the same thing. Brothers. Stanford. Billionaires. But then there was one that made my heart stop. The picture accompanying it was of Ford and a beautiful blonde woman who looked vaguely familiar. No one I knew in real life, but maybe someone I had seen in a magazine or a gossip column. Numbly, I opened the article. “Ford Cavanaugh and Georgia Harlow announce their engagement” it read at the top. The date was four months ago.
“Class A common stock is an ownership interest in a company and entitles purchasers to a portion of the profits earned,” Shelly announced from the doorway. She frowned. “I don’t know what any of that means.”
“It means—” Amanda started to explain, but then she saw my face. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s engaged.” I held up the phone.
I waited for Amanda to skim through the article and say, “No, didn’t you read this? It says…” and then explain why it wasn’t true. But instead, Amanda’s lips thinned, and she passed the phone to Shelly.
Shelly’s eyes narrowed. “So he’s an asshole. He’s still a rich asshole, Paige.”
“It might even work out better this way,” Amanda murmured, her lips barely moving, as
though she was suggesting something slightly unethical to a client within sight of the judge. “If he wants to keep the baby a secret, we can make it cost him.”
Shelly looked at Amanda, impressed, but I shook my head. The idea sickened me. Everything about Ford sickened me. I’d thought our one-night stand had been frivolous and fun, not cheap and sordid. No wonder he’d gotten a room instead of taking me back to his place. The penthouse hadn’t been to impress me, it had been to hide me.
“I’m Wendy the Waitress,” I realized.
“No,” Amanda shook her head. “No, you’re not. Stop it. He’s Alex the Asshole, but you’re not Wendy.”
“How am I not Wendy?” I pressed her. “I slept with an engaged man.”
“You didn’t know he was engaged!”
“Who knows if Wendy the Waitress knew?”
Amanda opened her mouth, closed it again.
“She got you there, Counselor,” Shelly said. “Okay, so maybe you’re Wendy. Nothing wrong with that. We’ve been too hard on her. You were both taken advantage of by creeps. But at least you picked a rich one.”
I picked at the fibers of the bath rug. “No,” I sighed. “We’re exactly the same. The only thing I can do differently is not make his fiancé into Paige the Pathetic.”
Shelly and Amanda traded looks.
“I’m tired of alliteration,” Shelly said.
“I don’t like where she’s going with this,” Amanda replied.
They both looked back at me.
“I’m not telling him about the baby,” I clarified. “I’m not doing that to another woman. If he tells her, I become Wendy the Waitress. If he doesn’t, it’s another lie between them.”
“I was afraid that’s what she meant,” Amanda said.
“That’s just dumb,” Shelly said bluntly. “How are you going to support this baby without him, Paige?”